Meet Phoenix Li, the seven-year-old Hong Kong piano prodigy taking the world by storm

A Hong Kong piano prodigy is quickly gaining international fame after her stunning performance on a popular American television chat show went viral.

Phoenix Li wowed an audience on the Ellen DeGeneres Show with her rendition of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s Flight of the Bumblebee.

A video of the performance has been viewed more than half a million times since it was uploaded to YouTube on February 24.

The seven-year-old pupil at the Methodist School in Kowloon, who has been playing the piano for only two years, is now preparing to perform on Chinese television later this month.

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She has also been invited to compete in a children’s talent contest on German television this year.

Speaking to the South China Morning Post, Phoenix said she decided to take up the instrument after being inspired by her older siblings, as well as listening to music by composers such as Beethoven and Chopin.

“I wanted to learn how to play those pieces,” she said.

“When I play fast pieces like Flight of the Bumblebee, I imagine a lot of bees flying around. And when I play the slower songs, I feel sad. I imagine some people are crying, and that is when I can play out the emotion,” she said.